Email Testing – A Must Do – Cheryl Pederzoli

While email testing is one of the easiest and most effective ways to improve your email results, it is a step many marketers skip. Why? Either the marketer doesn’t know enough about testing to try it, they don’t have enough time to think about it, or there is so much pressure to push things out, they don’t have a few days to let a test play out. All answers are bad answer because if they stop, breath and take a few minutes to plan ahead, there is no logical reason to skip testing.

So, what what is an email test? A well executed test allows you to send out two or more variations of your email to a subset of your list, sit back for a few hours or days to see which version performs the best, and then send the balance of your list the best version. Here is an example of how it plays out.

No Test	With Test of Body Copy
Send out email to 10k	Send out variation A to 1.5K and send variation B to 1.5K
	Wait 2 days
Email Results 20% open rate= 2000 2.5% click rate = 250 clicks	Variation A 20% open rate = 300 2.5% click rate = 37 clicks	Variation B 20% open rate = 300 3% click rate = 45 clicks
	Send Winner – Variation B
	Winner goes to 7k 20% open rate: 1400 3% click rate: 210 clicks
Total results Opens: 2000 Clicks: 250	Total results Opens: 2000 Clicks: 292

So while it took a few extra days to get all the emails out, the extra clicks more than make up for the time lost. The only real way to know if copy will resonate is to send it. If time is tight, you can set the testing period to be only 4 hours. The results may not be as accurate because you won’t have as many interactions to base the results off of, however even a short test is better than no test.

The good news is building a test doesn’t have to be difficult. Most email programs have the functionality built in. You can set the test up and the program will send it out, share the results and give you the option to have the winner automatically sent or wait for you to decide which version to send to the balance.

An important consideration is what criteria you measure to determine the winner. It really depends on your goals. Some people care about open rates, others click rates or maybe you want a custom variable to test like the number of subsequent form completions. Just make sure what you measure makes sense for the test. For example, if you want to test how good one button does vs another, the open rate will not be impacted, the click rate will be.

So, how do you decide which test? If you are trying to improve open rates, aim for subject line, from name or email or even preview text. If you are trying to improve click through rates, pretty much anything and everything in the body of your email is up for grabs.

As you conduct all your tests, don’t forget you aren’t just trying to improve the results of this one email send, you should be documenting what you learn so you can improve all your emails going forward.

Need help understanding email tests or setting one up, reach out and I would be happy to talk!